


Between the Bars

by anticholinesterase



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst, Bottom Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal Lecter Being Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal Lecter Being an Asshole, M/M, Vaginal Fingering, Voyeurism, alana's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28263975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticholinesterase/pseuds/anticholinesterase
Summary: A missing scene of Hannibal's time spent in prison under Alana's care.orHow may Hannibal Lecter hurt thee? Let me count the ways.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 54
Collections: Fannibal Holiday Gift Exchange 2020





	Between the Bars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1DanaNoe_l](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1DanaNoe_l/gifts).



> My XMas gift to the lovely @dHannibalbaby. She prompted me with Hannibal fingering himself. I instead decided to write angst (?) 
> 
> Fingering induced angst. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this anyway, friend!
> 
> Merry XMas!

Alana watched through the CCTV as Will left the room of Hannibal’s installations and made his way through the mostly empty corridors of the BSHCI. His steps hasty like he just wanted to be free of the haunting grounds of a facility in which he was once held prisoner. Or maybe his hastiness was mainly in order to get away from Hannibal Lecter as fast as possible. Alana couldn’t know. The interactions between the two of them had been held in secret so far.

She had managed to refrain from spying on any of the meetings they had under the hospital’s roof, despite waves and waves of curiosity that rolled over her body, both professional and otherwise. The longing to protect Will but also the longing to understand, to see whatever the hell she had missed before. Make sense of how she had failed her profession so dismally as to not have had Hannibal Lecter under her radar.

She was an ethical professional, though. As soon as she had taken over from Chilton all the clandestine bugs had been put away, no eavesdropping to be done under her management. It was a matter of dignity, one that she felt weighted in positively on the rocky balance she had managed to accomplish with Hannibal so far. He managed to maintain his dignity. His drawings, his music, his books. Wagner and Verdi on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Gounod and Bellini on Sundays.

She maintained her complete power over him.

Alana swirled the keychain that unlocked all the barriers between Hannibal and the outside world on her finger distractedly. She looked back at Will on the surveillance as he reached the exit and hesitated, a moment of vulnerability broadcasted in her monitor screens. His shoulders drooped in a defeated stance. Hurt. Like he had been wounded and was trying helplessly to make himself smaller so as not to attract attention, time to lick his wounds. He stopped for a moment before opening the exit doors, breathing hard, it appeared, in an attempt to regroup. He hugged himself for a second, thick brown envelope containing record files from the ongoing case crumpling a little under his tight grip. Alana watched greedily, couldn’t help herself, as a single tear dropped from his eye before he wiped it away with an angry gesture, rubbed his hands roughly on his face to shake himself off, get a grip. At last, he opened the door and was off to the world, having successfully shaken the ghost of Hannibal Lecter and his influence from his shoulder for yet another day. One small victory.

Until he came back again to continue their talks in two days.

Alana sighed loudly at her empty office, despondency making her restless, itching to take action by her own hands, to do something. It didn’t feel right. She had the keys in her hands. All five of them, concealing Hannibal from the outside world, protecting them from the horrors he could bring, the havoc he would surely wreak in his wake.

She took a look at her cane: souvenirs of his past misconducts. She looked at Will, teary eyed, hurt all over again: present misconducts, ongoing and endless. It never felt like they managed to get the upper hand, did it? She looked at the camera aimed at his cell and there he was, a serene smile on his face, sketching at his leisure, a drawing of something that the camera angle could not detect.

No, it felt like Hannibal was still winning. Yet again.

She grabbed her keychain, the Bâtard-Montrachet, two wine glasses and made her way downstairs.

“Was it good to see him?”

Hannibal didn’t acknowledged her, but kept on drawing, the one he had started the minute Will had walked out the door. It looked like a person from where Alana was standing, but she couldn’t grasp any further details from afar.

Alana put the wine and glasses on top of the table Will had been occupying minutes ago and sat down facing Hannibal on the other side of the glass. She opened the bottle with a pop and served the two glasses carefully before opening the double door hatch on the glass division to insert Hannibal’s glass inside.

The treatment Alana had given him so far had been cordial, downright luxurious for a prison mate. He seemed happy enough. Less inclined to reclaim her life as he saw fit, like he had sworn to do on the day she had chosen not to stay blind. Alana would take what she could get with Hannibal on a daily basis.

The click of the hatch door closing prompted him into action like Pavlovian conditioning. Hannibal stood up, taking a moment to look down fondly at his drawing, running soft fingers at its edges in a caress. He made his way towards her, a confident cadence to his steps, a mysterious smile playing at the corner of his lips as he opened the hatch on the other side, retrieving his drink. He then proceeded to resume the conversation. 

“Absolutely. Will has been nothing but a source of pleasure in my life, whether by his unpredictability outside the confines of my mind or the absolute kinship of the version that lives within.”

“The version that lives within?”

A pause as he swirled the liquid around the glass, inhaled its aroma, closed his eyes. Opened them again, bliss and mischief “I have him with me at all times, of course. Past versions of him, layers of intent and betrayal. The imago I constructed with building blocks he enticed me with, crafted just for me. A rendering of him that resides inside my mind, plays freely with the boundaries of my memories, knows me intimately” A pause as he sipped his wine thoughtfully “I like this version of him better, though, the one that resides on the outside. The version that talks back. The version that needs a bit of…persuasion, I suppose, to be reminded of the potential of what we had. A memento of a life past lived.”

Alana didn’t respond, wondering how far Hannibal would go about making Will remember a past life he was clearly trying to overcome. Overcome, yes, but clearly not let go comprehensively. Once more she wished she had access to the words shared between them. A glimpse of the mechanisms of their minds. The gravitational pull that entwined them so profoundly that no force, not grief nor disembowelment. Not four thousand miles of distance nor three years of life spent in different directions could wash away.

“To answer your question: It was nice to see him. It’s always nice to greet family. Will keeps surprising me, coming up here despite my plenty of warnings otherwise.”

“He surprises me too” Alana agreed, looking through the glass in her hands, the light refracting through the wine bringing shades and shadows to it anew “I wish he would just stay away from all of this. Stay away from you.”

Hannibal spared her an unreadable, perusing glance. His stance shifted, intentions unclear under his skin. He cleared his throat and said cuttingly “Although some surprises are not for the best. Did you detect the tones of lavender in the perfume that clung to his skin? Appalling.”

Alana didn’t say anything in response, rolling the cane from one side to the other on the floor. She hadn’t noticed any aroma of sorts, of course, but she had noticed the ring on his left hand before. Tell-tale signs of a life completely unmoored to the shambles that remained from the reality that had once constituted them. Tangential to her existence too. It left a sour taste in her mouth, being brushed off like such.

“Nevertheless, I suppose he would have to content himself with what he had, whichever opportunity presented itself to him. If I recall it correctly, you never gave him much of an opportunity, did you, Alana? _Unstable_ , I believe was the word he used to describe the incident to me at the time. Kissed him, led him on and left him stranded in the cusp of his affections. Pretty rude of you in my personal opinion.”

Alana looked up abruptly at the implications of the threat. Hannibal was smiling at her, something ferocious, knowing exactly how she would take the statement of his. She downed the rest of her wine, maintaining eye contact, which made his smile grow larger, more sinister.

“Although I didn’t have to use much persuasion to have you share the bed with me. Tell me Alana, how do you think he felt the moment he came to know you would give yourself over to me, but not to him? All that speech about him not being stable enough for you? And yet no qualms falling into my sheets. A bit ironic, don’t you find?”

Alana felt the words like a punch to her chest, taking her breath away completely, leaving her hurt and sore as it made impact. She had forgotten how well Hannibal could play with her sensibilities. She wished she were more drunk to deal with him.

She serves herself another glass and drinks it down at once. Liquid courage. Alana stands up and starts walking the perimeter of the room, trying to take a peek at his drawing at the tabletop. She had to remind herself once again that none of this was about her, them. What they had, what she thought naïvely they had once shared. Now she knew she was just a pawn in their game, something to literally throw away. No, all this petty talk was not about her at all.

It was all about Will.

And if it was about Will, well. She possessed ammunition to poke back.

“You try to spin this on me, but you are just jealous there are parts of Will you never got to see, Hannibal. And never will. Despite your best efforts, your manipulations, all your big plans and whispers in the dark, he never let you inside completely, did he?” A derisive laugh that she knew would get to him, knew it would add insult to injury “No, in the end you couldn’t completely grasp him, just as me. We were both left stranding. And now he has a family of his own that has nothing to do with you. One you failed to provide. There is nothing lacking inside him anymore for you to fulfill.”

Hannibal was standing unnaturally still. Good. Two could play at this game.

She raised an eyebrow at him and spoke delicately, every word dripping acid, corrosive and abrasive “Do you think he spares you a second thought when he is making love to his wife?”

That seemed to do it, snap the last straw, as Hannibal got up violently from his desk and turned his back to her as if trying to block her words from entering him.

Alana didn’t mind the dramatic display of his. It gave her an opening to look at his drawing without the weight of his scrutiny. At last, she was able to see what his drawing was all about. A sketch of Will. Posing in the nude, completely exposed as he laid forwards bracing himself against a wall on his forearms, back and behind in full display. Curls of hair framing his half-hidden face that looked back over his shoulder, a barely there smirk could be seen in the edge of his lips. It was a sinful, detailed and erotic rendition of him. Alana felt herself flush as she absorbed the details, imprinted on her mind a side of Will she hadn’t let herself entertain before. Something forbidden. Something beautiful.

Her silence was probably too telling.

“Do you like my drawing Alana? I wouldn’t mind making a copy for you if you’d like. This one, I am afraid I have other plans for it.”

Alana tried to ignore him, his abrasive and mocking tone. It was the price she had to pay for locking something dangerous in a cage. If you got too close, it would bite back. She focused on the parts of Will she knew, that she had witnessed along the years. His soft looking curls (she knew how soft they were, had ran her fingers through his hair more than once), his strong shoulders, his small waist. The red lips she had once kissed. Other details like his knees, hidden parts she had managed to catch a glimpse of along the years, driving to his house for an impromptu house call/not house call. Catching him off guard, shower fresh, barely out of bed. Surprising him a bit.

There were features in this drawing though, from his stance ( open and inviting, cocky in his allure) to the dimples that crowned the small of his back, the smooth curve of his ass. Features those that talked of in-depth knowledge of Will’s body. Of familiarity.

Alana tried to regulate her breathing while wondering whether Hannibal and Will had actually been intimate in this capacity before. If, unlike Alana, Hannibal too had- Or if it all just a fantasy of his.

“Are you blushing Alana? Interesting. Perhaps _you_ are the one who doesn’t know Will as…intimately as you would have liked to” Hannibal pointed out meanly and Alana didn’t have an answer to this, could not defend herself from his accusations “I am afraid we are brothers in arms you and I. Crawling through the mud in this never-ending battle to get to the core of Will Graham.”

Alana tore her eyes away from that alluring redemption of Will and stepped back from the glass, physically distancing herself from it. She felt like a predator, intrusive and trespassing onto something that did not belong to her. A voyeur.

Hannibal seemed to thrive on her distress.

“He is an exceptionally beautiful specimen, isn’t he? Have you ever talked to Margot about him? I wonder if your pillow talks with Margot revolved around Will as much as our own once did. I wonder if she was able to provide enough data to sate your _professional_ curiosity about him.”

Alana seethed at having Margot brought up in the middle of this feud. How dare Hannibal talk about her so crudely? And-and…

How dared Margot to take Will so carelessly?

“We don’t talk about him.”

There was nothing they could talk about, no contribution Alana could make to the conversation, anyway. Nothing Margot hadn’t experienced firsthand. Shared traumas, orgasms and parenthood entwined in a way Alana hadn’t ever even come close to. It was a sore spot, something Alana thought had been long forgotten, over and done with.

Apparently not.

“That’s a shame. I always meant to ask Margot but lacked the opportunity. Perhaps you could be a dear and open that channel of communication for me?”

Alana stared into Hannibal’s eyes and saw cruelty brewing in the darkness. She braced herself for the incoming pain.

“How well did he perform, how did he take her? Was he as... _unstable_ in bed as he was out of it? Was that something that you secretly craved for, Alana? Something you wanted to tame?”

Alana gasped, shocked by the mental image. Shocked by how much it affected her. The predatory feeling invaded her once more, making her feel repulsed by herself. She needed to leave.

“I often wondered how Will takes a partner. A captivating conundrum of mine: Does he make love, or does he fuck? Surely he is quite keen to please, wouldn’t you agree? So attuned to everyone around him, their wants, their needs. I am positive he is one exceedingly dedicated lover. And remarkably virile too. Impregnated your wife after one ejaculation. Good for him. Very effective.”

Without a glance back, Alana walked away briskly, as fast as her cane would allow her. Anger and lust making her body thrum violently. She needed to get away from Hannibal as fast as she could. No one was safe around him, be it his deadly hands, his dark manipulations or his intrusive thoughts.

His sinister amusement followed after her like a viscous shadow.

The door closed with a loud noise after her. Alana breathed out slowly, relieved at having created another effective barrier between them. She clutched the keychain tightly in her hands like an amulet and limped back to her office.

Alana collapsed over her armchair disoriented and out of breath, both from the exertion of moving upstairs and the thoughts that Hannibal implanted inside her head, the imageries he persuaded her to see.

Her attention was caught by sudden movements on the camera that monitored Hannibal’s cage front and center, his table in full display. Her mouth dropped at the sight she was greeted with. She closed her eyes. Opened them again. Breathed out shakily, but the vision stayed the same.

The dignity pack she granted Hannibal also entailed a measure of privacy. Not only in the moments of interaction between Will and he, but also in mundane moments of day-to-day life. It was something Alana constantly struggled with, her ethics and morality battling away with her ever-persistent curiosity. There he was: an unknown, undefinable creature under her spyglass. The craving to watch his every move, analyze his behavior, try to capture anything real, get to the truth of Hannibal Lecter was overwhelming. And yet she would again and again refrain from doing just that. Take a step back, turn her face away. Let him roam freely instead of making an experiment out of him. 

But this was something else, this was…sinful. And there was only so much her curiosity would let her refrain from engaging with.

Hannibal had taken his jumpsuit off, folded nicely at the tabletop next to his papers. He stood proud and completely naked in front of his table, stance wide and imponent, every piece the beautiful specimen Alana knew intimately. Her eyes travelled down his well-defined arms, biceps and triceps that had once held her tight. Down to his forearms, his surprisingly delicate wrists. Scars that she had once helped heal, skin that she had once kissed. All the way to his capable hands, surgeon’s hands, musician’s fingers. Hands that prepared a plethora of dishes for her, had enchanted her with moving musical renditions. That had once touched her to her core, extracted orgasm after orgasm out of her. Deftly, Skillfully. Passionately.

The hands of a killer.

Those same hands now found themselves down between his legs, exploring between his ass cheeks, stroking the skin of his perineum. His cock hung proud and heavy in front of him, hard and thick just like she remembered (felt, tasted, savored, pleasured herself with).

Will’s drawing boastfully placed on the table in front of him.

The heat that had taken over her body just minutes ago came back with a vengeance, intoxicating and all consuming, making her writhe in place. She had not been invited to this party. She should just turn the screen off, turn her back on all of this. Escape another avalanche of influence Hannibal threw her way.

Alana sat down more firmly on her armchair, scooted closer to the screen, mouth open in a silent gasp, cheeks flushed. A moment of hesitation but no more than that. She was doomed from the beginning, as per his design, hook, line and sinker. She dropped a hand between her legs and touched herself over her pants, trying to relieve some of the aching heat.

Hannibal dropped forwards, down to a forearm that held him up against the table, muscles of his back moving beautifully, coiled tight under the strain of holding himself upright, the strain of reaching behind himself, fingers circling his hole.

He brought his hand to his face and spat on it, a crude and somewhat unexpected motion that clashed with her pre conceited notion of him. Made her hotter still. Alana held her breath as he brought the hand back towards his backside, touched his hole, spread the split there around the skin. The tension rose up in that second between an action and the next. A breaking point for both Hannibal and his display of exhibitionism. For Alana’s shunned ethics and her dubious role as a voyeur in this fucked up show of his.

And then it snapped, it must have snapped as it was all set to motion, all hands on deck. Hannibal’s head fell back, eyes shut in bliss. Alana moaned aloud, couldn’t help herself, at the sight of two of his fingers pushing in.

There was no audio track to accompany what she was witnessing; Hannibal’s hips moving back and forth, a slow rhythm that kept building up, fucking himself back on his fingers. The steady movement of his arm, reaching back, driving in, the flicker of his wrist as he desperately tried to reach further, harder, deeper. The angle seemed insufficient to provide the best stimulation but that didn’t seem to deter him at all. Hannibal had precise anatomical knowledge, of course. He could probably use every inch, angle, girth and rhythm to his advantage. The fervent way in which his hips moved, chasing pleasure seemed to serve as agreement. The way his cock, flushed a deep red and untouched so far, leaked at the tip was further evidence.

There was no audio at all, but Alana could imagine it vividly, call back the soundtrack from her memories of him. Of them, together.

His groans, guttural sounds that reverberated in his ribcage, low frequency making them travel further in space, through her skin and into the core of her being. His gasps, short _staccato_ sounds, unexpected and unannounced when a feeling surprised him either by its intensity or by how affected he was by it. His whimpers when he found himself ultimately out of it, a loss of control that was such a contradiction to everything Hannibal was, everything he aspired to be that made Alana’s head spin.

Her breathing turned raspy and labored, as if she were the one exerting herself, running a marathon, chasing pleasure actively. She moved her hand over her pants in an aggressive, circular motion, feeling the tissue moist under her fingers. Too affected, too entirely affected by Will. Hannibal. By the image of them, together, that would forever haunt her after this.

Alana caught the moment a third finger joined the first two and that seemed to cause a volcanic reaction in him. His spine bowed in a sinful curve, movements harsher now, demanding, nearing a finish line. He dropped even further over the table, almost head to head with the drawing of his. Fingers of the hand that sustained him upright clawing at the edges of the table, turning white with the force of his grip.

He rode his fingers with abandon, a moment, two, fist thumping on table, sweat breaking on his skin. And then Hannibal was coming, untouched and beatific, entire body trembling, an orgasm that seemed to take the better of him. He stood upright and the hand that gripped the table was now around his fat cock, milking the last of his orgasm, ropes of come landing on the table, pearly white and thick.

Some of it landed on the drawing on the table, probably tainting the lines and curves of Will’s body. Marking his skin.

Alana shuddered with the implications of it.

She slipped her fingers into her undergarments and inside herself, penetration made easy by the moisture that had gathered there. Her thumb rubbed insistently over her clitoris as fore and middle finger rubbed her inner walls with intent. She needed to come. She was so close, so so close to coming.

Alana inserted a third finger in and looked at the screen one more time, just in time to see Hannibal touching Will’s sketch with reverent fingers. The tip of his forefinger brushed a rope of come on the paper. He rubbed it right in, blending it to the cellulose. Making Will absorb all of it.

Alana gripped her thigh fiercely, nails digging in and she was coming, harder than she had managed to in a while. For longer than she remembered that she could. It took a while for her to come down from the heights of it, her mind a mess of jumbled thoughts and images, her body breaking out in goosebumps, feverish and shaky.

When she managed to focus on the screen once again, Hannibal was entirely covered, prim and proper as if nothing had happened. She took her fingers out of her undergarments, moist and trembling and focused on regaining her stability.

A knock on the door made it so as to be a matter of emergency.

Alana gathered herself as best as she could, tried to calm her breathing, brushed the stray hairs back on her hairdo, took her cane and went to greet the visitor, unprepared for whoever they might be.

Will.

His expression apologetic and awkward in equal measures “I am so sorry for disturbing you again, Alana. I think I forgot one of the report files with Hannibal. Would you mind if I went back in to grab it? It has some important contact information I will be needing today. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have minded waiting until Friday to retrieve it.”

“NO!”

She freezed instantly. Couldn’t look him in the eye. Not after…not after what she had witnessed. The thoughts in her mind. The activities she had partaken in.

Will clearly startled with her frantic response. She wished to apologize, she truly wanted to. But she knew that any eye contact now would be deadly. Her remorse and shame written all over her face. No, no, a tête-à-tête with Will in this moment was the last thing she wanted.

She cleared her throat, distancing herself from him. She gave him a brief, wan smile and retrieved her cane, desperate to create distance between them right now.

“No, you should stay here. I will get it for you.”

Will spared her one hard, searching look but didn’t interrogate her any further. She turned her back to him and pinched her nose, looked herself at the mirror. Her cheeks were still red. She closed the door behind her as calmly as she could.

He didn’t follow.

When Alana entered Hannibal’s installations once again, he was already there waiting for her, standing next to the hatch door, the most devious smile she had ever witnessed playing on his lips.

“I am so sorry, Alana. It seems dear Will left one of his report files behind. It seems quite important, I am sure he will come back for it shortly. Would you be a dear and return it for me?”

It felt like a bad dream that Alana knew beforehand with certainty exactly which paper contained said report. She opened the hatch with dread, denial and disbelief raging inside of her. She pulled the hatch on her side open, gathered the piece of paper from within. She was struck once again by how feeble and childish her control over Hannibal seemed to be. The hold she had over the locks, keys, walls, gates seemed to give her an unrealistic notion that she held any control over Hannibal’s situation. How naïve of her to believe he was not the one all along who was pulling the strings.

She looked at the classified piece of paper that contained dates and contact information regarding a case that Will had been consulting with Hannibal for the past week. She flipped it to its back which contained a realistic, intimate rendition of Will’s naked body. Come stains all over it.

Hannibal’s smile seemed to gain power, electricity, making it brighter still. Alana was brought speechless, hurt and dumbfounded by his twisted games. There was no way to mend this situation. No shortcuts or smokescreens to shield Will from this kind of assault.

She closed the hatch, moving slowly and morosely and started back towards the stairs without a second glance.

“Alana?”

She stopped in her tracks, too ashamed to make eye contact. Too afraid of anything else that might come out of his lips.

“Did you enjoy our little show?”

Alana stared speechless straight ahead, feeling nauseous, and ashamed of herself, because he knew, of course he knew. Whatever he did to Will she too was complicit. Guilty. Tainted.

She ran away.

Will was standing resolutely away from the screen monitors in her office and Alana didn’t know how to interpret that. How much he had seen. Probably everything. She couldn’t know. She wouldn’t dare ask.

She handed the piece of paper to him and made every effort to avoid the soft, searching look in his eyes brought on by her obvious distress.

The softness there faded away instantly the minute he inspected the paper in his hands. The drawing. The spots of pungent wetness that glazed over it. The glaring discomfort written all over Alana’s face.

His face hardened, became weathered and worn. Fortified by a barrier he was able to conjure to shield away whatever raging conflict was unfolding inside of him.

“Will, I am so sorry, I-”

“It’s ok Alana.”

His tone was distant, aiming to appear unbothered. Will was good at that. Making himself appear impenetrable. Tougher than he was. But if Will was gifted with his empathy, Alana too was a gifted psychiatrist. Alana saw him gulp down dry, eyes averting to the side just a little. A lapse, a chink in his armor just enough to catch a glimpse of bottomless hurt and…longing? Yearning? Could it actually be yearning haunting his eyes?

When he talked it felt he was talking to himself. A long, hopeless conversation battered and hammered on over and over again inside of him “It’s ok, I am used to Dr. Lecter by now. I can handle him. I _have_ to handle him. I am the only one who can, I--. He is my cross to bear.”

Will held onto the paper tightly, fingers shaking with white knuckles, tears forming in his eyes.

It was heartbreaking. Alana might struggle to secure physical barriers concerning the BSHCI. Lock down. Double lock down. High end security systems to the best of her money’s capacity to ensure that Hannibal Lecter couldn’t have a chance to escape.

But Will’s fortification was orders of magnitude harder to mantain. The barriers of his mind under perpetual siege. The stakes greater and more deadly than Alana’s could ever hope to be. It felt like there was an abyss between them. Alana wasn’t sure she would ever have the proper tools to attempt to cross it. She wouldn’t know if any attempt would be welcomed, anyway.

Will shook his head and the window of opportunity was missed. Another barrier of fortification. An ongoing reformation on his part.

Alana held onto her silence. The feeling of being tainted, of being an accomplice of Hannibal’s pervading her core, making her feel sick. She had never felt more despondent in thinking she could ever hope to protect Will Graham from anything.

He gave her a tight, insincere smile from thousands of miles away.

“See you again in two days.”

He left. Head held high. Any trace of hurting buried deep, untraceable and his alone to carry.

Alana didn’t follow.


End file.
